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What title to use when addressing a woman? There are practical considerations.
When a middle school teacher I know got married, her students had trouble adjusting to her name change. They constantly twisted their tongues when trying to pronounce "Mrs. McMasters" and in frustration asked her, "Can we still just call you 'Miss Wood'?"
Blaine said:
Is is possible that the word Camille was trying to remember was simply "stevedore"? She was trying to recall the word for a person who is very good at packing and she said the letter "v" was prominent in the word.
Ditto. stevedore.
Is our actual word 'letter' memory as unreliable as eye-witness memory?
A probable update on "ookoosh" - I"ve just read a paper for my PhD research, which mentioned some emotion terms in a language called Gujarati.
The words were transcribed roughly into roman characters, and 2 caught my eye: "khush" meaning "glad" and "nakhush" meaning "miserable". I know the possibility that this is somehow related to the issues, but I thought I"d mention it. Might be a wild goose chase and a mere coincidence, but I can"t help the image of a little kid who becomes "nakhush" and is soothed by a lullaby and a warm blanket, and becomes in turn "khush" ^_^.
I"m a dork and I"m lovin" it!
Ken Mohnkern said:
(I know how our hosts feel about Wikipedia, but...)
The Wikipedia article on Pittsburghese needs a little help. It has this notice at the top: "To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article needs redd up."
*snickers at Ken Mohnkern*
It took my college room mate (from Philly) a good part of freshman year to break me of the "need + past participle" habit. I must admit, I still slip up now and again.
I regularly have to ask my Yinzer husband to clarify what he just said. For example, a word that sounds like "will" could in fact be "will," but it could also be "well" or "wheel." He freaked me out when he told me he "left the dogs out." (We didn't have a fenced yard.) His response? "I left them back in."
So, question: If we move to Milwaukee, what's the likelihood that the Northern Cities Shift will influence his pronunciation? Or is it too late for him to even hear the difference?
"Ookoosh" sounds French to me.
"Oo" could be "houx" as holly in English. For Christians, it means protection. Mary, Joseph and Jesus hid from King Herod's soldiers in a bush of holly. Sometimes, people hang holly above a baby sleeping to protect him against spells.
"Koosh" could be "couches". Today it means diapers, but my grand-mother used it to talk about the blanket in which we cover/wrap the babies or young children.
Jackie said:
I'd guess, too late. I spent the first 40 years of my life in western PA. Have lived in WI for almost 7 years. Being out here has not changed my speech. CheddarMelt, I'm assuming your husband is a Stillers fan and that yinz go dahntahn to shop for jumbo at GianIggle. *grin*
Yeah, I have to redd up so's I can meet my friends at the Eat 'n Park in Scroll Hill. There's food that needs eating.
(Typing that made me a little sick to my stomach. I think I need a Sprecher.)
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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